Position

Senior lecturer in medieval history

Short bio

Since 2007 I teach medieval history at the history department of the University of Amsterdam, since 2015 a senior lecturer. I studied History at the University of Leiden and in Santiago de Compostela and subsequently gained my PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam with the award of distinction of cum laude.

Research

I am especially interested in the field of social, political and cultural history of the late medieval Low Countries and the princes, nobles and administrative elites of the Burgundian and Habsburg composite state, as well as gift exchange, stained-glass windows, and tournaments.

NWO project on territory

From 2016 to 2020 I will direct a research project funded by NWO Humanities entitled Imagining a territory. Constructions and representations of late medieval Brabant. This project analyses how the interaction between prince, nobles and urban elites influenced the construction, perception, and representation of a territory. The test case will be the late medieval Duchy of Brabant, which still has historical and territorial significance for many people in present-day Belgium and the Netherlands.

Mario Damen, 'De Spaanse middeleeuwen', in: R. Fagel en E. Storm ed., Het
land van Don Quichot. De Spanjaarden en hun geschiedenis (Amsterdam 2011) 32-63.
In a (dutch) textbook on the history of Spain, I wrote a chapter on the medieval
history of the Iberian Peninsula

‘Gift exchange at the court of Charles the Bold’, in: M. Boone en M. Howell ed., In but not of the market: movable goods in late medieval and early modern urban society (Brussel 2007) 81-99.

‘The nervecentre of political networks? The Burgundian Court and the integration of Holland and Zeeland into the Burgundian state’, in: A. Janse en S. Gunn ed., The Court as a Stage (Londen 2006) 70-84.

‘Giving by pouring. The function of gifts of wine in the city of Leiden (14th-16th centuries)’ in: J. van Leeuwen ed., Symbolic Communication in the Late Medieval Town (Leuven 2006) 83-100.

‘Education or connections? University-trained officials in the Council of Holland and Zeeland in the Fifteenth Century’, in: J.J. van Moolenbroek en K. Goudriaan eds., Education and learning in the Netherlands 1400-1600. Essays in Honour of Hilde de Ridder-Symoens. Brill’s studies in intellectual history 123 (Leiden 2004) 51-68.

Imagining a territory. Constructions and representations of late medieval Brabant

This NWO funded project (2016-2020) analyses how the interaction between prince, nobles and urban elites influenced the construction, perception, and representation of a territory. The test case will be the late medieval Duchy of Brabant, which still has historical and territorial significance for many people in present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. To underscore the fluidity and multiplicity of the concept of territory, this project sets out to disentangle the divergent, though sometimes overlapping, conceptions of what exactly Brabant was (or should be) in the eyes of different political actors, in this time before the availability of reliable scale maps. To answer the main research question the project takes a twofold approach. On the one hand, we will define ducal, noble, and urban conceptions of Brabant mainly through administrative sources, particularly those of the fourteenth century that reflect a turning point in the capturing of territory. On the other hand, we will explicate how differently political actors envisaged and visualized territory in a wide range of relevant sources: architectural, heraldic, cartographic, narrative, and administrative. In this way, the project provides a completely new perspective on the concept of territory before cartography and state formation turned boundaries and territories into more fixed (but still changeable) geographical entities.

2006

Damen, M. J. M. (2006). Giving by pouring. The function of gifts of wine in the city of Leiden (14th-16th centuries). In J. V. Leeuwen (Ed.), Symbolic Communication in the Late Medieval Town (pp. 83-100). (Medievalia Lovaniensia. Studia; Vol. 37). Leuven: UP Leuven.

Damen, M. J. M. (2006). The nervecentre of political networks? The Burgundian Court and the integration of Holland and Zeeland into the Burgundian state. In A. Janse, & S. Gunn (Eds.), The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages (pp. 70-84). Woodbridge: The Boydell Press.

2001

Damen, M. J. M. (2001). Taxation for prince and officers. The Council of Holland and the aides in the Burgundian period. In R. Stein (Ed.), Powerbrokers in the late Middle Ages (pp. 27-46). (Burgundica). Turnhout: Brepols. DOI: 10.1484/M.BURG-EB.3.213

Damen, Mario (speaker) (23-6-2017): Listing Space and Mobility in the Late Medieval Low Countries, Mobility and space in late medieval and early modern Europe, Oxford, United Kingdom.

Damen, Mario (speaker) (18-3-2017): Political literature and the nobility in the late medieval Low Countries, Reconsidering the Boundaries of Late-Medieval Political Literature: France, Burgundy, and England, Odens, Denmark.

Damen, Mario (speaker) (23-6-2016): The Visualization of Noble Space: Heraldic Devices in the Town Hall of Brussels, Urban Visual Culture(s): Productions and Perceptions of the Visual in Late Medieval and Early Modern Cities, Durham, United Kingdom.

Damen, Mario (speaker) (17-3-2016): The representation of noble space in the town hall of Brussels, Heraldry in Medieval and Early Modern State-Rooms , Münster, Germany.

Damen, M.J.M. (invited speaker) (9-7-2015): Tournaments and Social Status: The Profile of Tourneyers in the Late Medieval Low Countries, International Medieval Congress, Leeds.

Damen, M.J.M. (invited speaker) (2-7-2015): The nobility in the Estates of the late medieval duchy of Brabant,, Making constituions, building parliaments. Constructing representative institutions, 1000-2000, London.

Damen, M.J.M. (invited speaker) (21-5-2015): An ‘urban’ chronicle in a ‘noble’ armorial? ‘Wapenboek Münster’ and the urban environment of a noble patron, Towards new thinking in urban historiography: Old texts, new approaches, Brugge.

Damen, M.J.M. (invited speaker) (29-8-2013): The nobility in the Estates of Brabant in the late Middle Ages, ‘Our sovereign lord with advice and consent of the estates of parliament’: Prelates, nobles and patricians: the composition of representative institutions, Stirling.

Damen, M.J.M. (speaker) (24-3-2013): The city as a stage. Tournaments as urban festivals in the late medieval Low Countries, Making Space for Festival, 1400–1700. Interactions of Architecture and Performance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Festivals, Venetië.

Damen, M.J.M. (invited speaker) (10-9-2010): Tournament Culture in England and the Low Countries in the Fifteenth Century, Contact and Exchange in Later Medieval Europe. Conference in Honour of Malcolm Vale, St John’s College, University of Oxford.